08 de marzo de 2016
The ICA extends agreement deadline with sanitary authorities of Panama and United States for animal health
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This agreement seeks to combat the cattle screwworm, parasite that is hosted on open wounds causing high animal mortality.
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This parasite was discovered in 1825 on western states and also affects the health of people.
Bogotá, 08 March 2016. The Colombian Agricultural Institute, ICA, and Panama-United States Commission for the Eradication and Prevention of cattle screwworm, COPEG, they signed the agreement extension that develops on the border between Colombia and Panama, in order to eradicate this parasite that affects livestock in that border area also in some cases attacks human health.
This agreement allows activities such as: consulting and exchange of technical and scientific information, technology transfer, officials training in parasite diagnosis, capture adult flies, pupae collection method and larvae collection method among other activities to facilitate the cattle screwworm eradication on the border between the two countries.
In this regard the ICA general manager, Luis Humberto Martinez Lacouture, said "the ICA keeps working on maintain animal health and to advance processes that allows the opening of markets for national livestock, so we are pleased to continue this strategy alliance with COPEG to benefit more than 450,000 farmers in the country”
This technical cooperation memorandum was signed in presence of the ambassador of the Republic of Panama, María Astrid Villa, the ICA general manager, Luis Humberto Martinez Lacouture, CEO of COPEG Panama, Francisco Pinilla and Antonio Arroyave, CEO of COPEG U.S, the ICA Deputy Manager of Animal Protection, Juan Andres Mosquera Angulo, Roberto Guzman, U.S ambassador to Colombia and professionals from the entity.
This technical cooperation between those three countries is valid until February 2020 and allows strengthening and competitiveness for national livestock.